Grandma Mistakenly Booked in Miami Jail as a Man

Fior Pichardo de Veloz, a grandmother arrested in Miami, was mistakenly booked as a man and spent nearly 10 hours in holding cell surrounded by men, the Miami Herald reports. Pichardo, 55, a citizen of the Dominican Republic, had come to Miami in 2013 to visit family when she was taken into custody on an old drug case. The arresting officer listed her gender as female. The confusion began when Pichardo was taken for a routine checkup in the prison facility, where nurse classified Pichardo as male after noting she was taking hormone pills—which she was taking for menopause. The nurse allegedly told the jailer that sometimes “male inmates take hormone pills to enhance their breasts.” Pichardo was then reclassified as a man without any physical examination to confirm. Pichardo’s lawsuit against doctors and nurse was at first thrown out by a federal judge, saying the jail staffers were protected from a trial for negligence. A federal appeals court this month reinstated the lawsuit, writing that the conduct of the nurse and doctor amounted to “deliberate indifference.”